As many people in the southern U.S. hosted neighbors who had no heat or water during the vicious February storm and deep freeze, Kate Rugroden provided a refuge for shell-shocked bats.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured stunning views of Venus during its close flyby of the planet in July 2020.

A new study from North Carolina State University reveals that the soundscapes of coral reef ecosystems can recover quickly from severe weather events such as hurricanes. The work also demonstrates that non-invasive monitoring is an important tool in shedding further light on these key ecosystems.

COVID-19's impacts on our global food system have affected the food security and nutritional wellbeing of millions of people worldwide, with market closures, supply disruptions, and income and employment losses. Understanding the extent and nature of these impacts will be critical to building resilience to future shocks, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

Volcanic rock samples collected during NASA's Apollo missions bear the isotopic signature of key events in the early evolution of the Moon, a new analysis found. Those events include the formation of the Moon's iron core, as well as the crystallization of the lunar magma ocean—the sea of molten rock thought to have covered the Moon for around 100 million years after the it formed.

A Brazilian study published in Nature Communications shows that human activities have directly or indirectly caused biodiversity and biomass losses in over 80% of the remaining Atlantic Rainforest fragments.

For more than 150 years, scientists have been incorrectly classifying a group of fossil insects as damselflies, the familiar cousins of dragonflies that flit around wetlands eating mosquitoes. While they are strikingly similar, these fossils have oddly shaped heads, which researchers have always attributed to distortion resulting from the fossilization process.

Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a new machine learning-powered platform, known as OC-SMART, that can process ocean color in satellite images 10 times faster than the world's leading platform. The work, which will be adopted by NASA, is one of the first machine learning-based platforms in ocean color analysis that can process both coastal and open ocean regions...

During mating season, male bearded seals make loud calls to attract a mate. How loud? Well, even their "quiet" call can still be as ear-rattling as a chainsaw.

NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover got its first high-definition look around its new home in Jezero Crater on Feb. 21, after rotating its mast, or "head," 360 degrees, allowing the rover's Mastcam-Z instrument to capture its first panorama after touching down on the Red Planet on Feb 18. It was the rover's second panorama ever, as the rover's Navigation Cameras, or Navcams, also located on the...

Freshwater is accumulating in the Arctic Ocean. The Beaufort Sea, which is the largest Arctic Ocean freshwater reservoir, has increased its freshwater content by 40% over the past two decades. How and where this water will flow into the Atlantic Ocean is important for local and global ocean conditions.

A new analysis of education debates on both social media and in traditional media outlets suggests that the education sector is being increasingly influenced by populism and the wider social media 'culture wars'.

Politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic had a powerful influence over adherence to social distancing guidelines in the United States and why people did, or did not, comply during the lockdown days, a new study has found.

India is the world's second-largest producer of wheat and rice and is home to more than 600 million farmers.

Researchers believe they have closed the case of what killed the dinosaurs, definitively linking their extinction with an asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago by finding a key piece of evidence: asteroid dust inside the impact crater.

A new study suggests that, while atheists and theists share moral values related to protecting vulnerable individuals, atheists are less likely to endorse values that promote group cohesion and more inclined to judge the morality of actions based on their consequences. Tomas Ståhl of the University of Illinois at Chicago presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on February 24,...

In the face of threats from other groups, humans become more cohesive and cooperative with their own, an association that Charles Darwin suggested could be an evolved capacity. Now a research group at Kyoto University has demonstrated experimentally for the first time that this propensity is shared with chimpanzees, one of our closest relatives.

Improving road safety in cities could result in a lower rate of violent crime, according to research from UCL.

A new investigation of maritime piracy reveals that pirate attacks occur more frequently in locations where destructive and illegal fishing practices take place. Raj Desai and George Shambaugh of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on February 24, 2021.

From the possible demise of Merlot grapes in Bordeaux to loss of olive trees in north Africa, the impacts of climate change will be felt by farmers across the Mediterranean region, say climatologists.

The state auditor criticized California's air-pollution agency for mishandling some of its climate-change programs Tuesday, saying the state is in danger of failing to meet the Legislature's targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

The family of ENDOU enzymes is found in most organisms, yet its functions are only poorly understood. In humans, it has been connected with cancer. RNA viruses, such as SARS-CoV2, contain a gene corresponding to ENDOU, and this is important for virus replication and the suppression of the immune response. However, so far only few details of the role of these enzymes are known. The research group...

Scientists have made a pivotal breakthrough in the quest to understand how single-cell green algae are able to keep track of the light as they swim.

Aged cheeses pack a punch of nutty, sharp flavor. Before they're fully mature, aged cheeses are either waxed or placed in brine for weeks to create a natural rind. However, the high salt content in brined cheeses deters some consumers. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Food Science & Technology present a shortened brining time for Parmigiano Reggiano that results in a less salty product, while...